Editor’s Note
This article reports on a municipal order to remove a protest banner criticizing plans to open a McDonald’s in a local market, highlighting a clash between commercial development and community preservation.
The Save the Puertochico Market Commission has publicly denounced the municipal decision to order the removal of a protest banner with a message against the Santander City Council’s decision to place a McDonald’s in the Puertochico Market.
That was the phrase on the banner that the city council has requested be removed. A measure that, according to the neighborhood group, constitutes “a deliberate act of censorship and a blow to freedom of expression, even when exercised from a private space.”
The banner is installed on the facade of the building at Andrés del Río 7, in a private space of the homeowners’ community, and yet the City Council has acted as if it were a major urban planning violation, say the residents.
The Commission denounces that the entire procedure was based on an express report, processed in a few hours, “to try to fit our protest banner into the advertising ordinance and thus justify its removal.”
The municipal resolution, processed by the Urban Discipline Service and clearly aligned with the action promoted from the Mayor’s Office, classifies the placement of the canvas as an “illegal work,” orders its immediate removal, and threatens coercive fines and an additional sanctioning procedure. For the Commission, “it is a completely disproportionate reaction and a twisted use of regulations in order to silence legitimate political criticism from private property.”
Residents point to the mayor as the precursor of this initiative:
they state from the Commission, which will appeal this resolution, considering it unfair, intimidating, and deeply harmful to the democratic coexistence of the neighborhood.
The Commission also denounces the absolutely fruitless and disappointing meeting held a few days ago with the Councilor for Commerce. The meeting was limited to a rigid defense of the legal framework and the tender specifications, without at any time allowing for the proposal of real solutions or the assumption of responsibilities.
During the meeting, the councilor was unable to explain why he allowed Baika, the management company of the Puertochico Market, to breach the contract without any consequences. In the transfer contract, the rehabilitation works were stipulated to be completed within a maximum period of one year, but they have ultimately been prolonged for more than five.
According to the Commission,
While the company pays €6,800 per year in fees for managing the Market, it could obtain close to €300,000 each year during the 40 years of the outsourcing contract.
The councilor attributed everything to the legal framework and the tender specifications, avoiding at all times taking responsibility for the key fact: Baika breached the contract for years without the City Council acting or fulfilling its obligation to monitor the contract’s development, as the responsible party, an obligation it seems it still does not fulfill.
The Commission recalls that the ordinances, uses, limitations, and internal rules of municipal markets are decided by the governing team, so “appealing to contradictory technical limitations was simply an excuse to avoid dialogue.”
Following the resolution for the immediate removal of the banner, the lecturing and harsh tone shown by the councilor —consistent with the mayor’s style— and the absolute lack of willingness for dialogue demonstrated, the Save the Puertochico Market Commission, together with FECAV and the AAVV Ensanche–Cañadío, considers that the time has come to take a step further and call a demonstration.
Because, beyond freedom of expression —which is already significant— what is really at stake is the identity of Puertochico and the city model we want for Santander: a living neighborhood, with local commerce, with history, and not a privatized showcase designed for the benefit of a few.
